35. Jack White Lazaretto

One of the things I love the most is straight shredded up guitar rock, and there was no better source of that year than everyone's favorite White Stripe's second solo release. Jack as always is a great abstract lyricist; structurally most of the songs here would fit in pretty nicely on a TWS release, but there's a sense of drama applied to most of them that keeps things interesting across the 11 tracks. Peep the title track if nothing else for prime all of the above.

KEY TRACKS

34. Isaiah Rashad Cilvia Demo

Top Dawg Entertainment's newest signee isn't quite packing the storytelling skills of Kendrick Lamar or the blunt charisma of Schoolboy Q, but his debut release (demo is underselling it) does a good job of bringing you up to speed on where this sharp new voice into the cloud rap game's life is at at the moment. Isaiah comes from Tennessee I wanna say and the southern/OutKast influence is really apparent here; all the raps are smothered up in this thick haze and his lyrics are definitely more introspective than concerned with what's happening in the world around him. The SZA collaborations reveal a lot and cuz I'm a softie, of course my favorite track is the one where he drops rapping altogether to lay out underneath the stars and listen to The Love Below or some ****. **** yeah for honesty.

KEY TRACKS

omg right!
I was listening to it earlier and thinking the same thing

I'm really liking Clouds right now

33. Aphex Twin SYRO

I never understood or listened to Aphex Twin prior to this year so I can't speak on this in the greater context of his discography, but the homie knows how to arrange blips and bloops in a way that comes out pleasing to the ear. It's like...hypnosis music to me lol, I don't know how else to describe it, but it totally creates its own world where music doesn't sound like anything close to what we have, and it proved way more useful than anyone could have thought in helping me write papers during finals week. Way to totally bang out for 59 minutes, and then finish things off decidedly not with a bang to a touching effect, also.

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Originally posted by Latch omg right! I was listening to it earlier and thinking the same thing I'm really liking Clouds right now

32. Taylor Swift 1989

100% a project that downplays and does away with the strengths of Taylor Swift the Artist and Songwriter; I guess we're done with painfully honest diary entries stretched out into epic 7 minute stadium rock singalongs, or those little personal details woven into otherwise relatable love stories that only served to make them easier to relate to. And there are weak tracks on 1989; "Welcome to New York" is an opener that fails to accomplish everything it sets out to do; that "Bad Blood" chorus grates on me as if it were Katy Perry song; Taylor's voice just sounds weak in spots, and no matter how much "Shake It Off" grew on you over time, don't tell me you don't feel AT LEAST a little bit embarrassed for her every time we get down into "this.sick.beat."
But beyond the slip ups in execution I'm not going to rag on delicious pop music for being what it is, and a solid 70% of the time 1994 cashes in on the promise of being delicious pop music of the highest order. The quavering unsteady drama of "Style," the way after becoming friends with the sisters themselves Taylor figured out how to do HAIM better than HAIM on "I Wish You Would," the beautifully written meditative sugar comedowns of "This Love" and "Clean" — it was understandably too much for a lot of forum homosexuals to handle in 2014, and now that babe has cemented herself as the biggest pop star in the world, I can't wait to see how she makes use of her power the next time around.

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Nah if she's gonna make a point to not let her music be available on Spotify then ima make a point not to inconvenience myself and work around her desires.

STYLE
BLANK SPACE
CLEAN

31. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Piñata

Madlib is totally one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time! All of us here know that Madvillainy is one of the coolest projects of all time, but while MF DOOM's cool and blunted rapping style made him an effective foil for Madlib back in 2004, 10 years later we're treated with a union just as promising thanks to a team-up with Indiana label veteran Freddie Gibbs. FG is not the most straight-up likable MC to these ears (I'm not a Pac fan), but his flow never dips over the course of this hour, as he narrates a very vivid picture of life out there in the streets(?). The diversity of the beats here is just stunning to me considering every track was produced by the same person; it goes way beyond the chipmunk soul samples, in a lot of interesting ways. It could be shorter and wouldn't lose anything for it, but for sure a nice energizing kick into the 2014 rap game. Make sure you listen to Shitsville.

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Originally posted by madonnas Piñata is good! 1989 is a misstep imo. Not cause of max just cause she's not as interesting as she used to be.